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IT-Director: Microsoft SOAP on the ROPEs

"Microsoft seem to be keeping its SOAPy hands firmly to its
chest. SOAP, or Simple Object Access Protocol, is a technology
standard announced by the company as part of its DNA initiative.
Essentially it involves using XML as a communications language to
enable object and component services to be accessed remotely, for
example over the Internet a kind of long-distance remote procedure
call. Great idea, but now Microsoft seems to be balking at the
principle of opening up a dialogue (as it were) about this new
"standard"."

"Now, suggested The Register, SOAP is being kept quiet not for
its own sake but for the sake of NGWS, upon which Microsoft's whole
future may depend. Having seen Microsoft's fears that the ongoing
court case may kill NGWS, this may well be true."

"...SOAP is following the same path as Java and with good reason
like Sun, Microsoft do not want to lose control of the "standard"
once it appears. ...to Microsoft, SOAP is a Java killer and more
the company has set it sights on the whole EJB/CORBA caboodle. With
an XML-based standard for application intercommunication, why
bother with the layers of complex interfaces that have evolved
around the Java spec? That's the marketing theory anyway the
reality is that, with ROPE, Microsoft are re-inventing the request
broker in their own image and hoping that its adopters will squeeze
those nasty competitors out of the picture."